Blood and Jazz

Notes from the Dvirhim Revolution

Aasimique

The Republic of Aasimique (lit. ‘like the act of protecting against the thinning of Boccob’s Veil‘, Celestial), often known in Common as ’Veil’s Thinning’, is a crowned republic in Tynwë that has existed since the end of the Dourdon dynasty. It came into existence in 2686, shortly after the fall of Tyne, and largely grew out of Tynan infrastructure. It boasted an extraordinarily dense population of aasimar, mercanes, and tritons as a result of the Dragon Empire’s invasion across the Strait of Wessorn and subsequent occupation of southwestern Tynwë using called Outsiders in 1782, during the opening of the Mezzërdinian War. It had three dynasties of royal Houses (the Tagoverts, the Caudelaires, and the Dourdons) before the monarchy was bloodlessly pressured into abdicating in 3831 by an eloquent intellectual class, as well as the implicit threat hanging overhead put forth by the horrifically violent recent revolutions in Cassily, Lusitola, Aglondale, and the island of Volushi.

The nation became ruled by a body of elected officials known as the National Convention until the rise of Juénavert Sionarte in a bloodless coup in 3839 and the formation of the Legislative Directorate, with Sionarte as Director. In 3842, Sionarte was crowned Emperor of All Aasimar, effectively returning the nation to a state of monarchy. In years since, power has fluctuated between the crown and the Directorate, with the crown sometimes holding most power, sometimes holding only ceremonial power, and sometimes holding most power while appearing to hold only ceremonial power.

During the Dourdon dynasty, Aasimique became intensely involved in the trade of slaves across the Mezzërdinian and the Ocean of Novdin. The Dourdons were responsible for the consolidation of the Kraken Deep slave colonies and sugar beet plantations starting in 3318, and for creating much of the demand for sugar as a cash crop, using revolutionary magical technologies designed by Aasimican agricultural scientists. They also covered the island of Volushi with slave-run sugarcane plantations, and fought wars of notoriously intense collateral damage with Aglondale for slaves and territory in Lusitola and Komwë starting in 3328. By 3340 they had established the “trigonometric trade” model between western Komwë, Ki-Tan, and western Tynwë, an extremely profitable route that was soon copied by most slave-based economies of Tynwë, except for Aglondale and its allies who created their own unique competing route across the Grand Canal of Estorn.

Slavery of most humanoid species was abolished in Aasimique by the National Convention in 3831, but soon reinstated by Sionarte in 3839 in order to pacify the angry directors of the Kraken Deep and recoup its dwindling losses to Aglondale in economic expansion that had been worsening since the loss of the island of Volushi to revolution. In 3929, Aasimique destroyed the royal lines of the Yashoru Empire, one of its principal slave trading partners, and usurped control of the empire’s slaving infrastructure, beginning an effort to become entirely self-sufficient in the slave trade.

In 3935, under intense international pressure, Aasimique again emancipated most humanoid species from slavery, but this triggered a successful revolution in the Kraken Deep and consequently placed a hostile former vassal state in the middle of Aasimique’s best trade route. To ameliorate their deteriorating diplomatic stability Aasimique continued to practice slave trade with most of their former partners, including the heads of the Kraken Deep, even though it had emancipated them within its own territories. This persisted until the 3986 Tynwëan Convention of the Rights of Ërdin’s Peoples expressly forbade the trafficking of all slave races Aasimique dealt in, including gnolls.

The diaspora of displaced peoples created by Aasimique’s long slaving tradition has resulted in a great deal of multicultural iconography becoming associated with Aasimique rather than its native lands; for instance, the Deck of the Veil, or taraka, which draws upon card games invented in the Isthmus of Estorn but with the original iconography transposed with imagery from the Boccobian mysticism of Aasimican mercanes.